Prawns with Ouzo, Orzo and Courgette

A really lovely summery dish from Marianna Leivaditaki of Morito's Aegean: Recipes from the Mountains to the Sea. The tip of roasting the prawn shells before you make the stock is genius though, having made it, I think you can get away with using fewer of the other ingredients in the stock - see my note at the bottom of the recipe.

Marianna writes: This dish is delicate and velvety and it’s perfect in the summer when the courgettes are at their best. Make sure you get fresh prawns for this and their size is irrelevant as long as they are so fresh that they are almost still alive. Pick small tender andfirm courgettes and if they happen to have flowers attached to them then add these too.

Serves 4

— 400g (14oz) fresh prawns, peeled, shells reserved

For the prawn stock

— 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

— 1 fennel bulb, roughly chopped

— 1 celery stick, roughly chopped

— 1 red pepper, roughly chopped

— 1 white onion, roughly chopped

— 3 bay leaves

— A pinch of saffron

— 200ml (7fl oz) white wine

— 50ml (2fl oz) brandy

 

— 1 tbsp good-quality butter

— 200g (7oz) orzo pasta

— 3 pale green courgettes, very thinly sliced

— 500g (1lb 2oz) cherry tomatoes, quartered

— 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

— 1/2 tsp crushed fennel seeds

— 20ml (4 tsp) Greek ouzo

— Zest of 1 (small) lemon

— Zest of 1 (small) orange

— 1 handful of mint leaves, chopped

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas mark 4.

Place the prawn shells on a baking tray and dry out in the oven for about 20–30 minutes. This really helps to concentrate and increase the flavour of the shells.

Heat the oil in a pan and add all the stock ingredients. Toss around and cook gently for 10 minutes with no water. You want to caramelize and sweeten the vegetables. Add the prawn shells to the pan and cover with water. Simmer gently for 30 minutes. Turn the heat off and allow the stock to rest for a while before passing it through a sieve and reserving the liquid.

Heat the butter in a pan and add the orzo. Stir gently for a couple of minutes until it’s all shiny and coated in the butter. Add half the courgettes and all the tomatoes together with the oil and fennel seeds. Increase the heat and start adding the prawn stock in batches – you may not need to use all of it.

The orzo will take about 15 minutes to cook. Just before it’s ready, add the remaining courgettes, ouzo and lemon and orange zest. Finally add the prawns and check the seasoning. Cook until the prawns turn pink. You want this dish to be loose and juicy – a bit like a risotto. Serve with the fresh mint scattered over the top.

If you have any prawn stock left over, freeze it to use another time.

Having made this recipe I think you could get away with leaving out the celery, red pepper and brandy from the stock and I would add the wine once you've sweated off the vegetables (then top up with water). You could add a bit more ouzo (I used 2 tbsp in total) but go easy on the orange zest which could otherwise dominate the dish.

What to drink: See my recommendations in Match of the Week.

Aegean: Recipes from the Mountains to the Sea by Marianna Leivaditaki is published by Kyle Books at £26. Photograph ©Elena Heatherwick www.octopusbooks.co.uk

Salmon burgers with goats cheese and sundried tomatoes

Burgers don't have to be beefy as these delicious salmon burgers from my book An Appetite for Ale prove, inspired by browsing the aisles of the Wholefoods market in Denver during the Great American Beer Festival a few years back!

Serves 3-6, depending how hungry you are

450g skinless filleted salmon, cut into chunks
80g young, unrinded goats cheese
4 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped
80g Sunblush* or other roasted dried tomatoes in oil, finely chopped
A handful of fresh basil leaves
40g natural dried breadcrumbs
Salt, freshly ground black pepper and a pinch of paprika
Oil for frying or coating the burgers

Chop the salmon finely or pulse 4 or 5 times in a food processor. Break up the goats cheese with a fork and add it to the salmon along with the chopped spring onions and Sunblush tomatoes. Mix well or pulse again (keeping some texture - you don’t want to reduce the mixture to a paste)

Finely chop the basil and add along with the breadcrumbs. Season with salt, pepper and a pinch of paprika, mix again and set the mixture aside for half an hour for the breadcrumbs to soften and absorb the moisture.

Divide and pat out into six burgers. Fry in a little oil or rub both sides with oil and barbecue over an indirect heat for about 6-7 minutes turning once or twice during the cooking process. Or grill or fry them - that's fine too. I quite like them on their own with salad and a salsa but you could put them in a bap or bun with lime-flavoured mayo, sliced cucumber and shredded lettuce.

What to drink: A Blonde or golden ale or lager pairs well with these burgers or you could drink a Chardonnay.

Photograph © Vanessa Courtier

Hiyajiru (chilled miso soup) with cucumber ice cubes

The perfect hot weather dish from chef Tim Anderson's Nanban - even if you only make the cucumber ice cubes

Tim writes: One of my all-time favorite dishes on a hot day. Some may find the idea of a cold miso and fish soup strange, but keep in mind all the cold miso and fish dishes found throughout Japan – this just takes those flavours and translates them into a refreshing liquid format. Usually this is served with a side of hot rice so diners can enjoy the contrasting temperatures. I use room temperature rice so everything stays nice and cold, but do whatever you prefer.

In Miyazaki this is dished up with a few ice cubes in it to keep it cold. I don’t really like this because as they melt, all they do is dilute the soup. To add flavour where it would otherwise be lost, I use cucumber-chilli ice cubes, which make the dish both lighter and more exciting as you get to the bottom of the bowl. This will make more ice cubes than you need, but they are fantastic in a Bloody Mary, or G&T.

Hiyajiru
冷や汁
Chilled miso soup

Yield: 4-6 servings

For the miso soup:

2 mackerel fillets or 4 sardine fillets (about 150g total), skinned and boned
30g miso
15g toasted sesame seeds
40ml rice vinegar
40ml mirin
300ml dashi
340g firm silken tofu, pressed to extract moisture
300g rice
1/2 cucumber
20g beni shoga (red ginger), minced
4 leaves shiso or 8 leaves basil, cut into a chiffonade
salt
sesame oil

For the cucumber-chilli ice cubes

1/2 cucumber
juice of 1/2 lime
2 Thai green chillies
30ml rice vinegar
50ml water
pinch of salt

To make the ice cubes, simply puree all the ingredients in a blender. Pass the purée through a fine sieve and transfer to an ice cube tray. Freeze until set.

For the miso soup: Season the fish with a little salt and grill until done – it should actually be a little overcooked so it’s quite dry. Purée this in a blender along with the miso, sesame seeds, vinegar, mirin, dashi, and 100g of the tofu until completely smooth. Pass through a fine sieve and refrigerate for at least an hour to get it really nice and cold. (The mixture will separate as it chills. Not to worry – store it in a jar and give it a good shake to bring it back together before serving).

To serve: Cook the rice. Cut the remaining half of cucumber lengthwise, then shave it thinly – use a mandolin, if you have one. Salt the cucumber slices liberally and leave them to sit for 10 minutes, then squeeze out the liquid and give them a quick rinse under cold water. Cut the remaining tofu into small cubes.

Place a mound of tofu and cucumber slices in each bowl. Add a small spoonful of beni shoga on top, and then a pile of shiso chiffonade. Pour in the soup, stopping just before it reaches the top of the tofu and cucumbers. Add a few drops of sesame oil and the ice cubes. Serve rice on the side.

What to drink: Like many soups I'm not sure this needs any liquid accompaniment but a glass of chilled sake would work or a very dry white such as a muscadet.

© Nanban: Japanese Soul Food by Tim Anderson (Square Peg), photography by Paul Winch-Furness.

Pot-roast chicken cooked in herby crème fraîche

A really lovely, summery way of cooking roast chicken from Olia Hercules beautiful new book Summer Kitchens.

Olia writes: "Chicken smothered and baked in cultured cream is an old classic, but sometimes I like to go one step further. I use a lot of herbs at home, and sometimes I am left with quite a few stalks: dill, parsley, basil and coriander stalks all work well when stirred into the crème fraîche. By the time the chicken is cooked, this turns into the most amazing sauce.

I like serving this with chunks of good bread and boiled cabbage or the cabbage and cucumber salad, but it would also be lovely with new potatoes or a buttery lemon rice pilau. Any leftovers are delicious stirred through hot stubby pasta."

SERVES 6

150ml crème fraîche
25g dill and/or parsley or their stalks, roughly chopped
4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
1 large chicken, about 1.4kg Sea salt and black pepper

Blitz the crème fraîche, herbs, garlic and a generous pinch of salt in a food processor until smooth. Taste, and add more salt if needed, and some pepper.

Pour the oil into a roasting tin, add the chicken and spread the herby crème fraîche all over it, inside and out. If you have time, cover and leave to marinate for a couple of hours at room temperature, or in the fridge overnight.

Preheat the oven to 200°C/Fan 180°C/Gas Mark 6.

Cover the chicken loosely with foil and roast for 45 minutes, basting it a couple of times, if you remember. Take off the foil and cook for another 15–20 minutes, or until the legs come away from the body with ease and the juices run clear from the thickest part of the thigh when it is pierced with the tip of a knife.

Take the chicken out of the oven and let it rest for 5–10 minutes. Pull the tender meat from the bones with two forks and mix through the roasting juices, then serve.

What to drink: Although you could - and might well want to - drink a red wine with this (a Loire cabernet franc such as a Saumur-Champigny or Chinon would work well) with all these herbs I'd be inclined to drink a dry white. I'm thinking Hungarian Furmint or Austrian Grüner Veltliner but Italian white wines would work well to. As would a pale dry rosé.

What wine - or other drinks - should you pair with herbs?

Extract taken from Summer Kitchens by Olia Hercules (£26, Bloomsbury). Recipe photography © Joe Woodhouse